An Offer Declined
by General Zelgeus
Summary: This is a story of a 'what if' thing. Basicly, Jess can't go to the meseum with Ms. Edmunds on our least favorite part of the story. LDD and Jeslie. R&R all that good stuff. Part 1 is complete! Watch for Part 2!
1. Part 1  Fatal Day

**A/N - This story is what would have happened, (My verson at least) if Jess couldn't go with Ms. Edmunds that day.**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything! It belongs to Katherine Paterson!

Chapter 1 - Fateful Day

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Jess Aarons woke up on early on a Saturday morning to find Maybelle standing in the doorway with a phone. She grinned and said, "Jess! I called you three times!" Jess nodded. And reached for the phone. "Its your girlfriend." She smiled sheepishly and scurried off when Jess yelled after her, "She's not my girlfriend!" 

"Hello?" Jess said into the phone half expecting the cheerful voice of Leslie.

"Hey Jess." The woman on the other side of the phone said.

"Hi, wait, who is this?" Jess said with confusion.

"I know this is a Saturday but this is your teacher, Ms. Edmunds. I was gonna go down to Washington and go to the National Gallery with my sister but she changed her plans last minute and now I've got an extra ticket. I was thinking that you might wanna come and keep me company." Ms. Edmunds suggested.

Jess' throat went dry. He had a crush on Ms. Edmunds and he really wanted to go. But he was afraid to talk into the phone in fear she would hear him shake.

"Jess?"

He broke into a cold sweat.

"You still there, Jess?"

"Yeah."

"Do you need to get permission first?" she asked gently.

"Yeah, just-just a minute." He said quietly. He put the phone down and scurried into his parent's room. His mother was the only one in bed but she would be the only permission he needed.

"Mom?" Jess asked.

"Hmmm? Is it the baby?" His mother asked sleepily.

"No, she's fine Brenda has her."

"Hmmm," She nodded and went back to sleep.

"Can I go on a field trip with a teacher?" Jess asked hopefully.

"Ask your father, I'm too tired honey." Jess squinted, and sighed. He knew his father wouldn't let him go.

Jess returned to the phone.

"I'm really sorry, but my parent's said I have to much work to do." Jess lied. He had to make up an 'important' excuse, but he didn't want his parents grounding him for the rest of his life when he got home.

"Oh," Ms. Edmunds said blankly, "That's too bad. Maybe I'll find another person. Thanks anyway Jess!" She finished cheerfully.

"Yeah, sorry, bye." Jess replied he scolded himself for his choice of words.

"See you on Monday."

"See you," Jess said. He heard the click of the phone and sighed. He really wanted to go with her. But he knew his parents would kill him.

Jess thought well leaving his room. He bounded down the stairs and out the door. 

Jess trotted down the hill to the Perkins house. He really was looking forward to hanging out with Leslie, but he was still in regret of not going to the museum with Ms. Edmunds. Jess reached the door and knocked on it lightly.

Bill answered the door still looking very tired. His hair was a bit messed up and he wore a white undershirt with shorts on. He held a cup of steaming coffee in his left hand and he peered at Jess through his round glasses.

"Ahh Jess, I suppose your looking for Leslie." He smiled at Jess. "She'll be out in a minute." Bill said and called to his daughter. "Come in," he added.

Jess stepped into the doorway and stood by the door. After about a minute, Leslie came striding down the stairs also looking kinda tired. She was ready to go, except for her shoes which see walked over past Jess and grabbed the pair sitting at the door.

"You ever gonna say hi to me?" Jess teased.

"Hi Jess!" Leslie muttered. She didn't say in a disrespectful tone just in a tired voice.

"Hi," Jess responded. Leslie slowly laced her shoes and stood.

Jess grinned and pushed his black hair out of his eyes, "You wanna go _there_ today?"

Leslie grinned back at him, "Sure. I'll race to you to the rope."

Mr. Burke spoke up from the kitchen table, "Make sure you two are back before lunch!"

"Sure dad," Leslie hugged him and left her house and tore after Jess. She smiled, _Cheater._ She thought.

She was gaining on him but he got too much of a head start.

Laughing, Jess beat Leslie to the rope swing. He grinned at her and smiled. "I- finally- beat you!" He spoke between breaths.

"Yeah," Leslie rolled her eyes. P.T. trotted up from behind. He playfully yipped at Leslie and ran around her legs once.

"Good boy, P.T." She patted his head and picked him up to swing across. Leslie gripped the rope with her right hand and P.T. in her left. She swung and reached halfway when, SNAP! The rope broke and she hit her head on a rock and fell limp into the river.

"Leslie!" Jess shouted and dove into the river after her.

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**A/N: AHAHAHA! I am SO mean! I gave you guys a cliffhanger ending, (Even though you can probibly guess what will happen). Anyway R&R! I don't care if you flame! Also tell me if you want me to continue past a chapter 2.**


	2. Part 1 Fatal Wound

**A/N: I AM SO EVIL!!! Have fun reading the chapter ;)**

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**Chapter 2: The Fatal Wound.**

"Leslie!" Jess shouted and dove into the river. He opened his eyes to the sting of the murky water. _Come on, where are you?_ He thought. He swam downstream a bit but couldn't find her. Jess surfaced and looked for his fallen friend. He saw Leslie laying limp in the water floating downstream with the powerful current of last night's rain fall.

Jess swam after her and finally caught her hand. He pulled her close and swam hard to the shore. He laid Leslie on the shore bank. He looked at her with tears streaming down from his face. "Leslie!" He shouted at his friend. She was out cold. Blood flowed freely from her forehead. He picked her up and ran home with every ounce of his strength. P.T. trotted after him barking loudly. The dog could sense something was wrong.

Jess burst threw the front door of the Burke's home. Mr. Bruke was still at the kitchen table sipping his coffee. He had his back turned from Jess.

"You guys forget something?" Mr. Burke asked casually still sipping his coffee.

"Call the police! Leslie is hurt badly!" Jess shouted still carrying Leslie.

"What?" Mr. Burke stood and ran to Jess and took Leslie from his arms. "Judy! Call 911! Leslie is unconscious!" Mrs. Burke did what she was told while muttering, "Oh my goodness!" the entire way.

Mr. Burke laid Leslie on a sofa and cleaned her gash on her head with water and a towel.

"Can I help at all?" Jess asked franticly.

"Go outside and get the paramedics in here when they arrive!" Mr. Burke commanded with tears in his eyes. Jess nodded and ran outside. He sat on the front porch and waited when thoughts came pouring into his mind.

_She is dead... I know it. I wasn't fast enough. Why didn't I saver her?_ Jess punched himself in the face. He felt discussed with himself. _Have I killed my best friend?_ He questioned himself. Sirens could be heard in the distance and Jess saw red and blue lights. _Well... here they are..._ Jess stood and waved both of his hands in the air wildly. The police cars saw him and pulled up with an ambulance. People in uniforms jumped out everywhere. Some with medical stuff like a stretcher. 

A cop with jet black hair ran up to Jess. "Is the girl here?" He asked quickly Jess nodded yes and opened the door to let them in. Cops and paramedics rushed in some were left on the porch to ask Jess questions.

"Where did the accident happen sir?" A police officer asked with a notebook.

Jess pointed to the woods. "Ter-, er, the woods back there."

"So you were the only witness?" The cop asked. Jess nodded. "Then could you tell me how it happened? Or would it be too hard on you?" The police man asked kindly.

"No, sure. We were down by a creek in the woods. She wanted to swing across on a rope and it broke. She hit her head on a rock and went unconscious. I pulled her out of the creek and brought her here." Jess quickly summarized.

"Thank you sir, I didn't catch you name, but this will greatly help us learn how to treat her." The cop shook his hand.

"Jess Aarons." Jess answered and wiped his tears away.

"So you do not live with this family?"

"No, I live down there." Jess pointed towards his house.

"I see, Jess." The cop wrote something down. The paramedics had Leslie on the stretcher and out the door. She was already in the ambulance. The sirens were turned on again and the ambulance quickly rushed to the hospital. Jess hopped in the Burke's car and rushed after the ambulance.

They finally arrived at the hospital and were ordered to wait in the waiting room.

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"Dr. Colvus, our patient heart stopped!" An assistant shouted across the room. The doctor rushed and got the shocker. 

"Ok, a thousand!" The doctor shouted at his assistant. She nodded and turned the knob to 1000.

"Three, two ,one, clear!" The electrical voltage made Leslie convulse. But the heart pulse was still flat.

"Two thousand!"

"Clear!" The docter yelled. Again, no pulse was started.

"Dang it, one last try! Three thousand!" The doctor yelled with determination.

"Clear!" The voltage made Leslie's every muscle convulse but it was no use. The line stayed flat.

"We've lost her..." The doctor said with grief. "How will I tell the parents?" He asked.

The doctor took off his gloves and his mask and paced out of the room. He quickly made his way to the waiting room shaking his head.

The doctor shook his head again. _Well... I did my best. I feel sorry for them... I mean... who would want to die so young as twelve? _He shook his head in disbelief. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Burke..." He started. "I tried to the best of my ability... but... her heart just stopped beating. We tried shocking her heart back... but we failed with three tries." He shook his head again.

Mrs. Burke burst into tears and Mr. Burke had his eyes wide open in shock. Jess just sat there in disbelief with no facial expression. A blank stare was all he had.

A thought questioned in his mind, 

"I know this will be hard for you to believe but, Leslie is... dead. I'm sorry." The doctor left the waiting room and paced back to the E.R.

"Jess," His father and mother appeared in the room now. They saw the Burkes mourning now and knew. His mother sat down next to Jess.

"Jess, is she-"

"Yeah." Was his only response. Jess stood and walked out of the hospital and when he left the front door he ran. He ran fast threw the night chills and sat himself against a tree on the outskirt of the parking lot.

"Why?" He asked out loud to the night.

"Why did you do this to me?" He shouted to the sky. "Answer me!" He screamed with tears falling freely down his cheeks. Now the only thing that mattered to him now was gone. She was gone forever with her fatal wound.

"If there is a God out there! Please! Bring her back!" Jess sobbed. "Bring her back!" He screamed. But he knew that was fake. All that God crap; it was just a bunch of fake, religious lies to keep kids afraid of being bad. It was all lies. There was no God who watches over you... or is he real?

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End of Part 1

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**A/N: AHAHAHA! I AM SO MEAN!!! Leslie is dead. This is the end of the story. BUT I have a REQUEST (That doesn't mean I will) from a reviewer that I should continue past chapter two! So for all of you that are gonna stop reading here. For you, Leslie is dead! BUT if your gonna read more... Leslie MIGHT live, but who knows.**


	3. Part 2 An Error

**A/N: Weee! I finished part 1 and all that. I'm now starting part 2! If you don't get whats going on I'll tell you. Part 1 is its own seperate story. Leslie DID die... The point of it was to state that no matter what happened, Leslie was going to die. Her death was unstoppable. BUT since no one likes the idea of Leslie dying... This is an alternate ending to an alternate ending! So readers out there that are still confused... Leslie died in Part 1. But in Part 2 and beyond, Leslie didn't die. Which is why I stated that this story was going to be a LDD and Jeslie story. I hope you get what I'm trying to say but oh well. Enjoy Part 2 if you didn't want Leslie to die.**

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Part 2 - Miracles

Chapter 1: An Error

"Jess! Jess where are you?" Mrs. Aarons shouted to the parking lot. Jess remainded motionless still leaning against the tree in the outskirts of the hospital parking lot. He was shaking and trembling. His tears felt like fire on his cheeks and the pain in his head was unbearable. His loss consumed his mind and left him for dead on the side of the road. (That was a metaphor it didn't actually do that to Jess but he felt like it did.)

"Jess! Answer me!" His mother shouted and Mr. Aarons joined her in the search for Jess.

Jess avoided them though. He didn't want to see anyone. He was in shock and anger. He sat against the tree and lifted his hands to meet his teary face. He moaned in devastation. Jess began to hyperventilate and it soon became hard to breath.

"Les-lie..." He barely spoke though his tears before he passed out.

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Jess woke up in the car. He was laying in the back seat. His father driver's seat and his mother in the passenger seat. He didn't sit up though. He just laid there with his eyes open he blinked once then memories flooded back.Jess thought. _Stupid doctors. They couldn't revive her. What's so hard about it?_ Jess didn't understand death much. But he knew it meant that he would never see Leslie -ever- again. He sat up and looked out the window. Cars flashed by on the opposite side of the freeway. It had started to rain lightly and the darkness of the night was hardly cancelled by the light posts. 

"Jess. Your awake." Jack Aarons noted.

"Ch'ya" Jess said.

"I'm sorry for your loss. But you have to stay strong boy." His father boldly stated. Jess felt like punching him in the face or to say 'shut up' to his face. But then he would be punished for disrespecting his father. So instead he kept his mouth shut.

"She was special to you wasn't she?" His mother asked. But it didn't help Jess tears fell freely again from his eyes. A sick feeling crept into his gut. A feeling of guilt. _If I would have gone with Ms. Edmonds to the museum. She wouldn't have swung across and got the rope broken. Leslie wouldn't go to Terabithia without me._ He thought.

When they arrived home Jess got out of the car and headed straight to his room. He was tired, very tired. His eyes burned and his head was spinning. He climbed the stairs to his room and collapsed on his bed and fell into a deep sleep.

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The hospital rooms were still busy and Bill and Judy Burke had not left the hospital yet. Mrs. Burke was still crying her eyes out and Bill was trying to comfort his wife. But all attempts were useless. A nurse walked by and said a quick 'I'm sorry' to them. Bill felt sick to his stomach.

In the E.R. room the doctors assistant was the only one left in the room. She studied Leslie and saw how peaceful she looked. It almost seemed if she was smiling. But her job was to get the body prepared for cremation. So she got to work and disconnected the I.V. tube. But what she saw was the worst part. Leslie's stomach rose and fell. She was breathing... but the heart monitor still had the flat line. The assistant was dumbfounded. She picked up the cable the was supposed to be attached to the monitor. "Someone must have accidentally disconnected it." She thought out loud.

"Dr. Roanoke! The patient is alive! Notify the parents!" She shouted down the hall. She connected the cable to the monitor and sure enough, there was a pulse.

Dr. Roanoke rushed through the door and asked, "What did you say?"

"The patient is alive! The heart monitor was accidentally disconnected during the operation!" She said excitedly.

"Get a crew in here quick!" Dr. Roanoke commanded. "I'll go tell the parents!" For the first time that entire day Dr. Roanoke smiled. He strided into the waiting room where the two parents were still sitting but they had left. "Dang it."

"What is it, Sir?" A lady at the desk asked.

"Do you have the phone number of the Burkes? The two who were just sitting here?"

"I'll try to pull up their phone number."

"Good," Dr. Roanoke said. He hurried down the hall back to the E.R. room. There were doctors scurrying around Leslie looking at monitors and shouting commands at one another. "What is going on in here?"

"Sir, the patient's pulse is dropping slowly... we're losing her again."

-

Bill was driving Mrs. Burke home. He couldn't believe what had just happened that night. His only daughter died and he would never see her again. Bill was still in shock as he drove the small Italian car home that night.

"If it is hard f-for us," Mrs. Burke said trying to overcome her tears "Try to imagine what it is like for Jess."

"He must be devastated and clueless," Bill said. "He was there when she got hurt though." Tears still fell freely from Judy Burke.

"Yes, he witnessed it happen."

Suddenly, Bill's phone started to ring and vibrate. He quickly looked at the number and saw that it was someone he didn't know. But he picked it up anyway and put the cell phone to his ear.

"H-hello?"

"Mr. Burke?" The man on the other phone said.

"Y-yes that is me." Bill was surprised to find himself to be so shaky when he talked.

"This is Dr. Roanoke."

"Yes, what is it?" Bill said and he mastered himself.

"We, uhh, made a big mistake and I'm sorry." Roanoke said.

"What?" Bill asked.

"There was an error in the heart monitor. It was disconnected from Leslie during the operation and we thought we lost her."

"What are you trying to tell me?" Bill asked cautiously.

"Your daughter is alive, sir. She is in a coma, but she still breaths faintly."

"This better not be some kind of sick joke." Bill said. "What is it?" Judy asked with hope.

"The doctor said that they made an error with the heart monitor. They say she is barely alive."

Then Dr. Roanoke spoke through the phone again. "Sir, if you would like to come and see your daughter it would be alright. We have moved her to a normal room instead of the E.R."

"Thank you. We're on our way." Bill said and pulled a U-turn on the next stoplight. Bill hung up and dialed the number of the Aarons house.

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**A/N: Hope you guys liked it! R&R and all that good stuff!**


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